A Girl...

Growing Up: A Story in Two Parts

Part 1

I remember my mom telling me that one day I'd wear a dress or skirt just because I wanted to, not because I had to for some stupid school program or piano concert, and when she did I rolled my eyes so far back I could see my own scrunchi because, although this woman had birthed me and raised me to age fourteen, she clearly had no idea who she was dealing with. Me? Wear a dress on purpose? Gag me with a fork.

Flash forward one year and I'm in high school wearing pleated tennis skirts, babydoll dresses, and flower-print sheaths with opaque tights just because it's Tuesday. I am ever so grown-up and ever so aware of it. My mom rolls her eyes so far back she can see her own adolescence, and thus doesn't call me out on my shit.

This is what I thought of when I told Simon that what I wanted for Christmas this year was a sewing machine. Although I fancy myself moderately crafty, I put the hands-on (i.e., non-digital) portion of it into practice about as often as I cut my hair (going on year and a half now; yikes), and I certainly never ever ever ever thought I'd be someone who needed a sewing machine enough to have her very own. I mean, what am I gonna do? Make play clothes out of drapery?

But 2007 was the year I grew up--new car, new house, new respect for menstruating like clockwork--and so when I opened up the big box on Christmas morning and realized that I had my very own big-girl sewing machine (this is cute, but it doesn't scream "mature"), what else could I do but jump up and down, squeal "That's mine!" and wet my pants express my pleasure with a broad smile, a warm hug, and the promise of a prompt thank-you note? In short, I was pleased as punch and couldn't wait to get started.

Last weekend I dragged (drugged?) Simon out into the "biggest storm of the decade" and then subjected him to an hour at the craft store picking out fabric and supplies. (Which part of the trip was the frying pan and which the fire, do you suppose?) He had to come along, though, because I was to be sewing two projects especially for him--shades for the skylights in his music studio, and a bag that attaches to his drum kit and holds sticks--and I needed him to select the materials. For the former he chose a manly, striped upholstery cloth, and for the latter he chose electric blue Muppet fur.

I spent most of Sunday measuring and cutting and pinning and winding and threading and then, miracle!, actually sewing, and by dinnertime I had one of three skylight shades, a half-completed draft stopper (we ran out of rice for the filling), and the world's most pathetic pin cushion on account of it's being deflated (no stuffing) and unintentionally trapezoidal. If I affixed bolts to each side it could be the Pincushion of the Bride of Frankenstein.

It was immensely satifying to spend the day creating something out of nothing, and learning the mechanics of a new gizmo always gets me a little jazzed (unless something jams and then I want to throw it out the window). The draft stopper went like a song--no pattern, no problemo--and even the shade went fairly smoothly considering the fabric was so thick and stiff it was like seaming the sails of a schooner. The pincushion...let's not talk about the pincushion.

Part 2

While I was upstairs in my new sewing room slaving away and not having one lick of fun, Simon was downstairs surfing the web. Now, I like surfing the web as much as the next geek, but there's something about knowing someone else is surfing the web when I am being actually productive that drives me batty. How dare he troll Craigslist when I am beautifying his abode? How dare he browse YouTube when there are dirty dishes on the counter waiting to go into the washer? See, in addition to becoming a Woman Who Sews, this year I also became a Woman Who Cares about the Tidyness of Her House, and if you think that caught me off guard, poor Simon fared even worse. If he didn't know better, he might accuse me of the bait and switch.

In our old apartment, we were both experts at ignoring the dishes, seeing past the dust bunnies, stepping over the piles of laundry in the hall. How perfect that two such consummate slobs should have found each other; surely they will live in perfect harmony forever after! Huzzah! And then whammo, I started not only clearing off the kitchen table but then wiping it down with disinfectant spray. Lord, what have I become?!

Honestly, I think it's pretty rad that I'm finally at a point where I can vacuum a rug without getting peevish about it, but ah, there is a catch: Unfortunately I find myself flirting with peevishness when I am vacuuming and my better half is not. Nor is he sweeping or dusting or scrubbing or degunking or even organizing or beautifying. It is at this point that I become a shrew and force him to step away from the computer and do my bidding. I'm not proud of this. Also, I don't think he likes it very much.

Yesterday, while I was crafting things for the house (and this is before the above epiphany), I thought it only fair that Simon should also craft things for the house (although in man-speak the word "craft" sounds a lot like "build"). At the top of my list was having him finish one of his many, many half-completed projects. It makes me crazy that so much around me is half-done--especially as I am such a shining example of determination and follow-through. (See above re: lone shade, flaccid draft stopper, and empty mutant pincushion.)

So dear Simon, ever the reluctant martyr, set to work at my behest, finishing the "tree" part of the cats' jungle gym (the other half was to be the "industrial loft" half; get it? country cat/city cat?). When I first asked him to do it, my voice must have hit that particular pitch that suggests a tantrum is on the horizon should he refuse, because in no more than three clicks his computer was shut down and he was cutting astroturf for the platforms. "I just think we should spend our weekends working on projects, you know?" I said. "We have a lot of things up in the air and we should be making an effort to complete them, don't you think?" I kept talking (oh why did I keep talking?): "We shouldn't just start things and then leave them half-finished while we move on to other things, right?"

And then I opened my mouth once more, this time to swallow my feet up to the tops of my kneesocks while Simon kindly and politely explained what he had been doing on the computer all this time--on Sunday, on recent weeknights, on days off...He wasn't surfing the web or playing Minesweeper or secretly buying guitars. He was working on my birthday present, something that I had tossed out there as a joke a few months ago but that he had embraced as a challenge: a CD of highlights from an original Gilbert-and-Sullivan-style operetta about cats wearing clothes, which will be fully orchestrated and voiced by volunteer actors, and will, he tells me, put Sondheim to shame.

I am totally not kidding.

And I am totally going to make him the best electric blue Muppet fur drumstick case EVER.

(And also tone down the bitchiness.)